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stopped by practice today (finally!) and watched some of thier intersquad game.

Looked good pitching wise. Everyone believes we will hit the ball this season. Things sounded like they have been going good so far this spring. 1 week from Friday they open up with a 4 game home series with South Dakota St. Lights are almost up, in fact they may have been putting up the final light pole while I was there. (and it appeared to be a long process)

Coach Clark told me they are hoping to play 16 innings or so, I think on Saturday at some point, so if you get time, head out and watch a few innings.

http://www.ucaecho.net/stories/index.php?id=993

Bears at Play: Eric Tennyson

By Akira Horiike
Senior Writer
Published: February 13, 2008
Hometown: Harrison, Ark. | Position: Catcher | Class: Sophomore

Sophomore catcher Eric Tennyson is putting the mask and the mitt on tight for the upcoming 2008 season.

"It is our second year in the Southland Conference," Tennyson said. "We should compete better than last year."

Bears baseball went through a bitter season in 2007, which was their first Division I season...

I've got so many questions.... where to begin?

1.) Who's going to replace the power at 1B? Seelinger played there when Matt DH'd. But Peyton had zero homeruns last year.
We lost our top four guys last year in terms of pop. Yerby may be an answer there?


2.) Starting rotation for the weekends? It certainly didn't end up how we thought at the beginning of last year, so there's probably no way to know right now. But the season is just 8 days away!
There ARE four leftys this year. The two that pitched last year were 0-3 in two starts and 35.2 total innings. It'd be nice to have a weekend starter that wasn't a righty.
We return a lot of upperclassmen, several that were injured last year, so if power is going to be a problem, we're going to need GREAT stuff from those guys.

3.) Who catches this year? Davis hit fairly well last year, but we gave up 94 steals! To compare, we only stole 24 bases all of last year.

4.) Does Graham move over to short now? If so, who plays second? Dixon to second and Yerby to third? Platooning it in every position? Does anyone have any position locked down?


There's your homework BF101...

and all I thought you wanted was the UCA Baseball Encyclopedia...

D.Clark. Coaching third base box.

PRACTICE!!!!! What do you mean PRACTICE!!!!

Wish I could recite it as well as Iverson did that time.

Actually, two years ago Ryan Johnson manned the third base coaching box all year.

Went by the ball field yesterday and watched the boys of summer, eh I mean winter, take a little batting practice. Doug was proud of the lights and said more improvements will be made this summer. I can't figure out why the old light poles are still standing.

I guess you have to leave some history standing around.....

Monty

Well, there is still a heck of a lot of history still standing at this ball park!

It probably costs as much to take down the old poles as it did to stand the new ones up. I suggest building a skybox on each one.

No thanks. Don't like competing with the pigeons. Maybe Conway HS woodworking class could bring a chainsaw over and do a little creative cutting.

Doug spoke at Bear Backers today. talked abouthe seniors. He announced that Pitcher Jeremy Cloud underwent successful sports hernia/some type of hip muscle surgery and he should be back in a few weeks. Also Starting 2B, as Doug called him, Zack Dickson is out I think 4-6 weeks with a broken hand he suffered while in the weight room.

The rotation tentatively this weekend should be

Brandon Dunn on Friday
Matt Whitaker in Game 1 Saturday
Daniel Price in Game 2 on Saturday
maybe Bobby Pritchett on Sunday

they had an off day yesterday, so they wil lbe on the field every day this week (weather permitting) if anyone wants to come out and watch them before the season openers this weekend.

the baseball team just wrapped up their final inter-squad game before Friday.

So. Dakota St. is apparently pretty good, or they had a real good record last season.

That's tough to lose a couple of good players before the first pitch of the season. Hopefully we will have Cloud and Dickson back 100% percent real soon. I like the starting rotation on the mound for the weekend. I am so happy baseball is back. See you all at Bear Field!!! GO BEARS!!!